In 1829, a pregnant woman is condemned to die for a murderous act of rebellion. Meanwhile, in North Carolina, a woman is accused of giving sanctuary to runaway slaves. Dessa Rose is the heartwarming story of an extraordinary friendship between two strong, remarkable women from very different backgrounds, both caught in the shadow of slavery in the 19th-century South. One is an escaped Black slave under sentence of death; the other is a white woman committed to end the horrors her neighbors accept as a matter of course. Ruby Dee's passionate and sensitive reading gives a poignant sense of reality to this magnificent story of courage, daring, and love.